Is AI Really the Future of User Interface?

&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;Some experts think AI's biggest impact will be in the much more sophisticated way we interface with our computers in the future&period;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;

The theory is that artificial intelligence &lpar;AI&rpar; is going to be the next evolution&semi; and precisely because of that prediction about AI &lpar;plus its other uses&rpar;&comma; we witnessed an unprecedented technology gold rush in 2017&period;

The craze about AI had people investing millions of dollars into new products and services&comma; and hand-wringing skeptics forming think tanks to postulate about the end of the world&period; But&comma; for all of the speculation&comma; what did AI actually do in 2017&quest; What's it doing now&quest; And&comma; what's it poised to do in the coming year&quest;

First&comma; AI broke through the legitimacy barrier&period;

AI had its first victory as an up-and-coming technology when it broke through a crucial legitimacy barrier&comma; proving to everyone that it is not only viable but also a competitive advantage when deployed well&period;

A report by PwC estimated that by 2030&comma; AI could contribute upwards of &dollar;15 trillion to the global economy – more than the outputs of China and India today&comma; combined&period; PwC's statistic is one of many that suggest that our future with this technology is almost unimaginable&period; AI will destroy and create jobs&comma; invent new industries&comma; accelerate innovation to a new level and fundamentally change the way business is done across the board&period;

En route to that point&comma; there are questions being posed&colon; How does AI actually create value&quest; What applications of the technology have worked so well that we believe it will change the future in such radical terms&quest;

Interestingly&comma; applications for sophisticated tasks like smoothing out supply chains or detecting risks are still maturing&period; What AI already does well and what we can expect to see a lot more of in the coming years is helping humans to interface with increasingly complex computers&period;

Sean Nolan&comma; founder and CEO of Blink&comma; weighed in on these issues during a chat we had the other day&period;“Humans in the workplace experience 'technology fatigue' because the computer they interact with all day is robotic -- oddly organized&comma; clunky&comma; impersonal&comma; and slow&comma;” Nolan told me&period; “The reality is that computers are so powerful and store so much information&comma; and we need them to do so much&comma; that our ability to utilize them with just a mouse and a keyboard is becoming insufficient&period;

"AI comes along and opens up the possibility of creating a new interface between the complex&comma; impersonal nature of the computer&comma; and the intelligent&comma; complex nature of its human operator&period;”

Next&comma; AI is poised to take on immensely complex tasks&period;

By utilizing simple AI applications&comma; like chatbots and micro applications&comma; immensely complex tasks will -- one day soon -- be able to be reduced to simple commands&period; For example&comma; instead of spending an hour searching a company’s servers&comma; shared folders and cloud drives for every relevant document pertaining to a specific task&comma; you'll be able to simply ask a smartbot to do it for you&period; The task will be completed in seconds&comma; saving valuable time -- which PwC estimates will add up to &dollar;6&period;6 trillion in added efficiency by 2030&period;

While the benefits of added human productivity carry an obvious financial upside for the market&comma; reducing AI to the role of human-computer mediator seems like a demotion for a technology that is supposed to change the world&period; This view does not properly account for the magnitude of that accomplishment&period; In fact&comma; AI’s role as a mediator between humans and technology is perhaps its greatest triumph&period;

The myth that humans use only 10 percent of their brain power has been soundly debunked&comma; but we know for a fact that we use only a fraction of our computers’ potential at any given moment&period; Afterall&comma; our interactions with them are analog in nature&semi; and&comma; as a result&comma; fall far short of achieving maximum potential&period;

AI's untapped potential

AI as a user interface opens up vast untapped potential&period; This year&comma; it's chatbots and voice recognition&period; In 10 years it will be some version of Elon Musk’s Neuralink &lpar;one of his new companies&comma; which is working on linking the human brain to a computer&rpar;&period;

Today -- right now -- there are available a number of tools to help you interface with customers and users by implementing AI&period; They include&colon;

1&period; Chatbots&period; Chatbots can provide the additional layer between you and your consumers to answer their questions&comma; and to interact with potential or current customers&period;

2&period; Website builders&period; There are now new platforms like Grid&comma; which use AI to build your entire website&period;

3&period; Smartbots&period; Smartbots are another form of machine&comma; which can be used internally&comma; like a personal assistant&comma; to handle tasks like scheduling your calendar&period; This is how X technology works&period;

“What businesses need to know about AI is that the application they need to use it for first is workforce productivity&comma;” said Nolan&period; “This single competitive advantage will determine which companies survive the first round of AI and which ones do not&period; Thinking about AI as UI &lsqb;user interface&rbrack; and a means to access the untapped potential of our computers is what we can expect to see in 2018&period;”